


the lovers, the dreamers, and me.

by ithilien22



Category: As the World Turns
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-09
Updated: 2008-12-09
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ithilien22/pseuds/ithilien22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke and Noah babysit on Christmas Eve, and Noah gives Luke a special gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the lovers, the dreamers, and me.

Luke looks down at the cards in his hands rather dubiously. He hasn’t been paying very much attention to the game, but he has a feeling that he’s losing. Rather badly, in fact.

“Do you have any eights?” Faith asks.

“Go fish,” Noah replies from beside him, and Luke can’t help the small smile that appears when he glances over at his boyfriend. 

Three weeks ago, he wasn’t even sure that he and Noah would still be a couple by Christmas, but now it’s Christmas Eve and things are somehow even better than they ever were before. Except, of course, for the fact that it’s Christmas Eve and they’re stuck at home babysitting.

A _ding_ sounds from somewhere behind them and Faith jumps up from her seat, promptly forgetting the game as she rushes to pull out the Christmas cookies that have been baking. Noah leans back in his chair, draping a casual arm around Luke’s shoulder, and Luke has to fight the urge to pull him into kiss. _Later_ , he promises himself.

As Faith is carefully placing the brightly frosted trees and snowmen onto the cooling rack, Natalie comes barreling in from the other room, proudly displaying the drawing that she’s just finished coloring. “Look, Noah!” she exclaims, pushing the picture under his nose. “Look what I drew!”

Faith leaves the cookies for a moment and comes back to the table, saying, “lemme see,” before snatching the picture from Natalie and holding it out for everyone to examine.

It appears to be a manger scene, from what Luke can tell. Though, he has to admit, it’s much more colorful than he remembers the manger scene being. He thinks he spots a giraffe in one of the corners.

“There’s supposed to be a star over the manger, not a rainbow,” Faith informs Natalie after she’s through inspecting the picture. “And is Mary supposed to be wearing stilettos?”

“She’s a mommy,” Natalie explains, her tone slightly hurt. “She’s wearing mommy shoes.” She follows this statement by placing her hands on her hips and staring up at her sister defiantly. Luke bites back the laughter that’s bubbling in his chest. He can’t wait to quote that particular line back to his mother.

Instead, he tries to look as sincere as possible as he places a consoling hand on Natalie’s shoulder. “I like the rainbow,” he tells her with a smile, tucking a stray strand of hair back behind her ear and earning her own soft smile back in return.

“You would,” Faith snorts, which earns an indignant _Hey!_ from Luke, as he spins around to shoot an annoyed glare in her direction.

Noah, however, snickers loudly at Faith’s quip and when Luke turns to glare at him as well, it just makes him laugh harder. Though, to his credit, it looks as though he’s trying his best not to.

“Oh, come on,” Noah says, holding his hands up in a gesture of defense. “That was funny.” 

When Luke still stubbornly refuses to crack a smile, his boyfriend grins and slings an arm back around his shoulder. “Why are there so many songs about rainbows, and what’s on the other side?” he sings softly, his tone teasing. “Rainbows are visions, but only illusions, and rainbows have nothing to hide…”

“Hey, that’s Kermit’s song!” Natalie declares, recognizing the tune.

“It’s not easy being green,” Noah agrees, using his best Kermit the Frog voice. Natalie laughs in delight, but Luke just rolls his eyes and softly shoves Noah’s arm off his shoulders. Still, he can’t help smiling at Noah’s antics, at how naturally he seems to get along with Luke’s sisters. He squeezes Noah’s thigh under the table and Noah grins up at him, big and goofy and happy.

“Well, if Noah is Kermit,” Faith muses, shooting another pointed smirk towards her big brother, “then I guess that would make you Miss Piggy, wouldn’t it?”

“Ha ha,” Luke offers sarcastically, “you’re such a comedian tonight.”

Faith sticks out her tongue at him before heading back to her cookies, and Luke glances up at the clock on the wall. Somewhere in between the cookie baking and the sibling bickering it’s actually gotten rather late. If Luke knows his parents, they should be arriving back home in about an hour or so, and Luke had really hoped that he and Noah could have at least a few minutes of alone time before then.

“Okay, you two. I think we’ve heard enough comments from the peanut gallery for one night,” Luke tells his sisters. He gestures up towards the stairs and their awaiting bedrooms, “Time for bed!”

“Luke!” they both complain in unison. He just shakes his head at the sad faces they try to pull. 

“Go put this up on the fridge, so that mom and dad can see it, okay?” he tells Natalie, handing her the picture back. Then turning to Faith, he adds, “and you – go put a plate of your cookies out in front of the tree in the parlor. Then bed, both of you!”

Reluctantly, his sisters move to follow his orders. To his surprise, it’s only a half an hour later before he has them both safely tucked into bed. 

When he heads back down the stairs, he finds Noah waiting for him at the bottom, a sheepish look on his face and a box in his hands. It appears to be a Christmas gift, but it’s wrapped with several different scraps of gift wrap haphazardly stuck together with what looks like duct tape. He hands it to Luke almost as if he’s embarrassed. He gives a soft shrug of his shoulders when Luke looks up at him questioningly. 

“Just open it,” he says.

Luke rips off the wrapping and then looks back up at Noah, raising a quizzical eyebrow. “Peppermint…foot lotion? You shouldn’t have,” he says dryly. 

Noah blushes a deep red. “That was the only box I could find,” he mutters. “Just open it!”

Luke does as he’s told and opens the box, turning it over and looking down at the small brass key that falls into his palm.

“It’s for this cabin,” Noah says nervously, before Luke can even ask, “that I, you know, rented. For us. I mean, not that I. Just so we can have some time…together.”

He trails off, and runs a frustrated hand through his hair, as if none of this is coming out quite how he meant it to. Luke simply stares down at the key, his heart starting to hammer in his chest just thinking about all the implications of Noah’s gift. 

“You rented a cabin?” Luke finally asks.

“Yeah,” Noah replies, voice small, as if he’s afraid he’s done the wrong thing and is about to be scolded.

“Does that mean…” Luke stops, decides to be straightforward. “Does that mean you want us to have sex?”

Noah hesitates. “Yes?” he answers, like maybe it’s a trick question.

Luke grabs at Noah’s shirt and pulls him forward, capturing his mouth in a hard kiss. Noah growls in the back of his throat and Luke slips his tongue inside, traces the roof of Noah’s mouth. “Always want you,” Noah groans in between kisses, pulling their bodies closer together. “Always.”

Luke lets out a soft whimper as their hips align. “Waited so long,” he whispers, the words almost lost inside Noah’s kiss. “Thought I’d lost you.”

Noah breaks the kiss and pulls back just slightly, tilting Luke’s chin up so that he can look him in the eye. “Never gonna happen,” he promises. 

Luke smiles, still clutching the key in his hand.

“When do we leave?” he asks. “And please let the answer to that question be, ‘right now.’”

Noah laughs. 

“Tomorrow afternoon,” he says. “Your dad wanted us to be around for all the present opening tomorrow morning.”

Luke glances up sharply. “Wait, what? My dad knows about this already?”

“I…uh…I sort of asked him,” Noah admits. He rubs the back of his neck and won’t quite meet Luke’s eyes. “He was…cool about it.”

Luke buries his face in his hands, thoroughly mortified. “He gave you the safe sex lecture, didn’t he?”

“Little bit,” Noah replies. He grabs Luke’s hands away from his face and holds them tightly, pulling Luke back into his arms. “But the point is that he said we could go, and by this time tomorrow, I’ll have you all to myself.”

“Why Noah Mayer,” Luke says with a smirk, putting his arms around Noah’s shoulders, “are you trying to seduce me?”

Noah responds by pulling Luke into another intense kiss, backing him up against the counter in one smooth motion. He kisses his way down Luke’s neck, pausing to suck a bruise right below his collarbone. Luke moans, and bucks his hips up against Noah’s, almost overwhelmed by the thought that tomorrow they wouldn’t have to stop here. They wouldn’t have to stop _at all_.

Noah licks a stripe up Luke’s neck and bites softly at Luke’s earlobe, pausing there, his breath hot against Luke’s skin. “Oh, I am definitely trying to seduce you,” he whispers, before placing another bite at the edge of Luke’s jaw. 

“It’s about time,” Luke replies playfully, quickly silenced by Noah’s mouth once again closing over his. 

When the kiss finally ends, a shared breath escapes their lips – a soft _I love you_ that lingers in the air between them. Luke brushes the back of his hand against Noah’s cheek, and Noah closes his eyes, leaning into Luke’s touch.

_What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing? What do we think we might see?_

Luke smiles as he hears Noah whisper the words, almost too softly to hear. He feels like this is one of those moments that he’ll keep forever, like a perfect photograph. He’s almost afraid to say anything, for fear of breaking it somehow.

“Merry Christmas,” he murmurs softly, when the silence stretches out between them. Noah opens his eyes and gives Luke a smile that warms his entire body.

“Merry Christmas, Luke.”


End file.
